I have just returned from New Zealand’s South Island where I was part of a Tasmanian agribusiness delegation, led by Minister for Primary Industries and Water Jeremy Rockliff.

In many ways, we and the farmers of the South Island are kindred spirits. They farm slightly south of Tasmania’s latitudes, but, by and large, we have similar growing conditions and tend to concentrate on the same commodities—dairy, beef, sheep, horticulture and wine. We also have similar biosecurity conditions, being islands in the Southern Ocean.

New Zealand farming tends to be much more intensive than in Tasmania, that is, more head of cattle per hectare, but there is also a different motivation. My impression is that where we develop a farm for profit, they tend to do it for capital gain. In other words, they constantly look for an improvement opportunity and then resale. We tend to farm with a long-term perspective. The downside of doing it the New Zealand way is that by constantly increasing the value of the farm, they tend to outprice young farmers wanting to come into the industry.

The delegation visited research and teaching institutions in the Canterbury and Christchurch area, notably Lincoln University and the South Island Dairying Development Centre (SIDDC) and that’s where the major outcome was achieved.

Lincoln is New Zealand’s leading agricultural university. Its list of former Tasmanian students includes Jeremy Rockliff, former TFGA president David Gatenby and leading farmers Richard Gardner and James Walch.

During the visit Lincoln signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Tasmania. I believe it is going to lead to some serious collaboration on research that will benefit the rural sectors in both places.

It is a three-year partnership in agriculture research, development and education that will see students cross the Tasman both ways. It will also be of particular benefit to the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, which is a joint venture between the Tasmanian Government and UTAS.

What we will see is not only an exchange of students and academics but also an exchange of information on research and extension delivery and infrastructure management.

This was a really interesting insight for me from the visit. I had imagined that New Zealand farmers were light years ahead of us in water management. They are not. We can teach them a lot. They do not have the public/private partnership we have for irrigation development. There it is purely private and they do not appear to have the same environmental flow strictures that we have or the controls over nutrient seepage into waterways.

However, they probably have it over us in grass management and this is an area where I can see we can learn a lot.

I believe the SIDDC is an organisation that we should examine closely. Basically, the South Island Dairying Development Centre is a farm centre that applies the research from Lincoln to accelerate the development of dairying. It is a cluster of resources delivering innovative, practical research, technical, education, extension and training support to dairy farmers.

The SIDDC is a partnership of seven dairying organisations, including Lincoln, DairyNZ and South Island Dairy Farmers.

It is a model that is well worth studying for possible application in Tasmania.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN THE TAS COUNTRY ON 20TH NOVEMBER 2015.
TFGA president Wayne Johnston